"Welcome Back"

Summer is a pretty hectic time for the children and youth portion of our staff.  Leading missions trips, going on retreats, leading vacation bible schools, summer days with the kids out of school and such leave the offices out of normal routine.

The people that will hit stride come October are often hard to track down because their off reaching out and discipling outside our walls.

At the same time, many important decisions about the upcoming school year are being made by each of these ministries during the summer to be ready for the fall kick-off when it comes.

Unfortunately this creates a unique scenario.  Decisions being made that affect multiple ministries, but without all of those ministries present at the discussion. 

I've watched a couple of times this year, someone return from a trip to be informed of a decision that has major impact for their job, that they had no influence over, and may have tension because of.

A nice "welcome back."

It's a weird site to see.  The decisions haven't really affected me or the departments I oversee, but have clearly affected staff dynamic and reputation.  I sometimes get to watch objectively and see both sides of stories, and then see the potential problems as well.  Figuring out my role (if there is/should be one) constantly leaves me analyzing my function within a staff of peers.

Hopefully, these critical moments with potential for harm and good equally will all work out well in the end.........hopefully.